Mets Chat Room: Going for three straight vs. Bucs.

Johan Santana starts today to extend the Mets winning streak to three straight here and six in a row overall. Santana has eight no-decisions on the season, with the Mets going 4-4 in those games. There’s little doubt he could have won 20 games with more support.

A lot going on today:

-The Mets get reliever Luis Ayala for Anderson Hernandez. Let’s not get carried away and think he’s the answer. He is 1-8 with a 5.77 ERA.

-David Wright gets the day off.

-Ryan Church left Florida for New York because of the approaching bad weather.

John Delcos enters his third season covering the Mets for The Journal News after eight seasons on the Yankees beat. Prior to coming to New York, John covered the Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Browns and Cleveland Indians.

83 Comments

David, Annie: Not to get on my high horse here, but let Eddie Kunz get back on a horse in Binghamton or New Orleans, not Pittsburgh and not today.
I’m not in the mood for any bullpen BS.
Johan’s in complete command.
Let him finish.

Well down here in Miami looks like the Marlins pen is taking a page out of the Mets book turning a 2-0 lead into a 5-2 defecit in the 7th inning this comes on the heels of blowing a 5-3 9th inning lead on Friday.

1. Matt B: Come on, dude, it’s a San Diego thing! I lived there for the last 10 years before moving down south. The sand and sea color motifs are PERFECT for Aerica’s Finest City.

2. Annie: I’ve said this often in this forum, that my feelings about modern managers’ utter paranoia about starters throwing over 100 pitches and their collective cowardice in removing them after that threshhold is beyond words that can be printed in a family newspaper. I grew up in the ‘70s and ‘80s watching Mets greats like Seaver, Koosman, Matlack, Gooden, Darling, Fernandez and many top-notch starters on other teams. It would be incomprehensible for any of them or any other quality starting pitcher to be lifted after pitching a three-hit shutout after seven innings.
And back in the day, any pitcher worth his salt would be called more than a few epithets by his teammates, opponents and fans for not fighting his manager if the skipper wanted to remove him.
I’m for kickin’ it old school.
The complete game shutout used to be a badge of honor for a starting pitcher and it still should be.

You know after the debacle that was Monday afternoon I expected the team to go on the road and just squeak by series wins. However, for the most part they’ve dominated these weaker opponents in taking 6 in a row.

I suppose any new meat is good for the pen, but Ayala is nothing to get excited about. He’s thrown 57 IP in 62 games, with 63 hits and 22 BB and only 36K. His ERA is 5.77. The sad news is that these poor numbers are comparable to Heilman, Smith, Sanchez, Schoeneweis. I dont know anything about him though. Does he have lights out stuff or something else that suggests that he has potential? His career stats arent much different.

So, having just written that, I found this little tidbit on Ayala, which is encouraging. It is from May.
“Reliever Luis Ayala is back to being the player…overmatching hitters with his power sinker…Ayala hasn’t given up a run in his last seven appearances—a 7 2/3-inning span…

You say that Ayala’s career stats arent much different to this year but that couldnt be further from the truth. Prior to his injury in the World BAseball Classic that cost him all of ‘06 Ayala was a very good middle man with a sub 3 career ERA. Even coming back last year his ERA was 3.19. He’s having a down year no doubt and I’m not expecting anything huge from him but he does have a track record and can easily catch lighting in a bottle in a pennant race.

John, I went to the B-Mets game tonight @ Bowie. Castillo was taken out of the game after his second AB (GO 1-3, BB) for a PR. I asked one of the players if Castllo was OK and was told that he was called up. I don’t know if that means the Mets for tomorrow or NO for another day of rehab (Binghamton has the day off). Dillon Gee looked really good (6 IP, 1 ER, and the got the win).

Ayala has been going thru some personal issues. Hopefully that works out and it is the cause of his bad yr and he turns it around to even last yrs numbers. Give Ayala a chance.

People like to get on Omar, and I for one still feel the jury is out on Mets scouting and player dev, but he has done pretty well on acquiring these guys who were suppose to be done (Tatis for one) or are messed up mentally (OP) and have come in and contributed.